*This is from a sermon preached on December 19, 2021 at Peace Mennonite Church by Joanna Harader.

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There is a story in Jewish tradition that when Adam and Eve saw their first sunset, they thought the world was ending. For them, the end of the light meant the end of life. And they were convinced that their sin had killed the world. That had caused this darkness.

When the light returned the next morning, the first humans realized two things:

1. There is a natural cycle of light and darkness, and it is all part of life.
2. Their sins were not powerful enough to destroy the world, nor was their virtue powerful enough to restore the world.

“What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

These opening verses of John, known as the Prologue, echo the creation story of Genesis 1: “In the beginning.” It is God’s voice, God’s Word, that creates the light, the sky, the seas, the sun, and moon, and animals.

As John says: “In the beginning was the Word. . . . All things came into being through the Word.”

We see the three gifts of the creation story, outlined here in the beginning of John’s gospel: Word, light, and life.

The Greek term that gets translated as “Word” is logos. As with many Greek terms, it doesn’t translate easily—or well. It does mean word, but also so much more. The logos is the wisdom of God–closely connected to the Wisdom tradition (Sophia). The Word is the creative power in the world. Some liken it to “the Force” in Star Wars. One scholar describes logos as “the principle by which the whole world is held together.” (from Bibleworm podcast)

In the beginning was the principle by which the whole world is held together.

With the school shootings in Michigan earlier this month, recent storms, personal and family struggles for many of us, and the new COVID surge messing up our Christmas and worship plans, I keep thinking of the lines from William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. Things fall apart, indeed. But . . .
In the beginning was the principle by which the whole world is held together. And that principle was with God, and that principle was God. . . . What has come into being in that principle was life, and that life was the light of all people.

Thanks be to God for the gift of the Word.
And for the light.

I love the midrash—that story from Jewish tradition—about Adam and Eve thinking the world was ending when the sun set. It can feel like that—when there’s too much darkness, when you can’t see where you are or who is there with you or what path to walk.

Lots of people feel that this time of year. A decrease in sunlight can disrupt our bodies’ rhythms and affect our moods. And it seems people have felt this for thousands of years.

It’s likely that the date for celebrating Christ’s birth was set to align with ancient Roman celebrations of Saturnalia and the birthday of the sun god Mithra which occurred in late December. And Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, also takes place this time of year.

During dark times, we want festivities to brighten our days. We want to bring light into the darkness—especially this time of year. And we can, to a certain extent, work to create our own light, to bring a bit of brightness to bear in the dark days.

Yet, as Adam and Eve discovered, it is ultimately God who controls day and night, light and dark. There is a natural rhythm to be respected and appreciated. Our behavior—good or bad–does not cause the sun to set—or to rise.

Ultimately, as John so poetically puts it, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not extinguish it.”

Thanks be to God for the gift of light.
And for life.

It is an extravagant life that we have through the Word. The first chapter of Genesis reads like a litany of abundance. Plants and trees of every kind. Sun, moon, and stars. Swarms of fish, herds of mammals, flocks of birds. Some of you might remember when we talked about Genesis 1 this summer and had our little quiz about how many types of creatures there are in the world. 1,000 breeds of cattle; 7,500 types of apples; 300,000 species of seed-bearing plants; 900,000 kinds of bugs. This world is teeming with abundant life.

Thanks be to God for the gift of life.
The Word, the light, and the life have been present from the beginning. That is what Genesis says and what John affirms.

Then John adds a twist: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” More accurately, “The Word became flesh and pitched its tent among us.”

These opening verses of John’s Gospel are very heady and poetic, bringing in grand concepts. While it sounds beautiful, it’s actually pretty hard to follow what, exactly, John is saying.

Those of us who have been around churchiness for a while know from “In the beginning,” that John is talking about Jesus. But really it’s not until the end of the prologue that John reveals that Jesus Christ is the One of whom he writes: the Word, the Son, the Light, the Life, the revelation of God, the principle by which the whole world is held together.

And this Holy One—wonder of wonders—became flesh in the person of Jesus.

That is the hope we cling to when it feels like things are falling apart. That is what we celebrate in this season.

Thanks be to God for the gift of Jesus.